Chris Tapp Donors Dinner Speech
This speech was delivered by Chris Tapp, Director of Credit Action, at the Donors Dinner which took place on Wednesday June 11th 2008 at the Bridewell Hall, Fleet Street, London.
Good evening ladies and gentlemen and may I add my thanks to you for both your attendance this evening and for your ongoing support of Credit Action - there is so much of what we do and the assistance we offer which would simply not be available without the generosity of our donors, thank you.
We stand now on the shadowy side of the economic mountain. As the Governor of the Bank of England eloquently put it yesterday, ‘the party is over'. The papers are full of grim warnings of negative equity, repossessions, redundancies, debt and inflation. Unfortunately, at Credit Action, we find ourselves in a growth industry.
As such there has never been a more important time for us a charity to be in a position to respond to circumstances of people facing increasing uncertainty and rising bills. And I don't want to be heard to be talking about just those who are struggling under the burden of debt. Debt is, and will continue to be, a major issue for Credit Action but we must maintain the broader view. This is a view which takes in those who may be debt free but destitute, those who aren't necessarily paying interest but who are paying the price for poor money management.
Increasingly this type of financial hardship is endemic across society with the middle classes as susceptible as any, if not more so, to the squeeze of a post-credit crunch economy. Our focus though remains on those groups who are hardest to reach and those who are particularly vulnerable to financial stresses exacerbated by financial illiteracy; students, single-parents, the homeless, those going through relationship breakdown, those in prison, immigrant communities, those living in areas of depravation, the list could go on.
So how is it that we at Credit Action aim to reach out to meet this need? And how is it that your support can enable us to this more effectively?
Credit Action works in four main ways; through the provision of resources and material to inform, instruct and enable people to manage their money, through the provision of training to organisations and individuals to ensure first hand help is available where people are and even where we are not, through specifically targeted projects, and advocacy through the media and political engagement.
You'll be relieved to hear that I do not intend to dwell on these areas in detail, I hope that many of you will be familiar with many elements of these different works. There is plenty of material and information available this evening, you can grab one of the Credit Action staff with their fetching purple badges, or you can ask questions in a short while. Suffice to say much is happening and we will be more than happy to tell you about our unique Spendometer mobile phone budgeting tool, how our Student Moneymanual is now reaching every student in the country, how our network of trainers now allows us to offer training nationwide including, in the very near future, Northern Ireland and so on and so forth.
I could go, and happily would, but I want to focus the rest of the time I have not so much of what it is we are doing now, but on what it is we hope, with your help and support, to be doing in the coming months and years. I wish to do this by addressing two seemingly conflicting questions; firstly, how do we expand our reach? And secondly, how do we put ourselves out of business? I hope you will see how it is that these two questions are at the very core of who we are as a charity, and why it is that your support is so vital.
Firstly then, how do we expand our reach? Demand for genuinely independent information on money management is growing, more and more people are recognising the benefit of better thinking about money, and more are in need of urgent help in thinking through such exciting topics as budgeting, saving, and debt. We are in a position where in the last six months we have been able to achieve two crucial goals in ensuring access to our services in as wide as possible. We have been able to reduce the prices we charge for organisations ordering our guides and we have been able to make, for the first time ever, all of our core Moneymanual series available completely free of charge through the download service on the Credit Action website.
This is progress, but it is not the end of the road. I believe the ideal, the goal towards which we should strive, is to have our services available free of charge to all, whether in hard copy or soft. Prior to working at Credit Action I worked a mere stones throw from this spot, at an investment bank. This is not the kind of thinking which would have endeared me to my superiors there. However we are not about the bottom line, the profit margin or the increased return; we are about the lady able to sleep again at night, the man debt free for the first time in 18 years, the student able to learn at 18, skills that enable to stay in control financially for the rest of their life.
We can only continue to make available more and more of our resources and training through generous core giving to us by individuals, trusts and others. In the coming months we will be delivering free training and material in Leeds thanks to money received from a community development fund. This is one small grant in one small area but it is something we want to replicate nationwide. £100 allows us provide 50 Moneymanuals to needy individuals; £450 allows us to train up 16 workers who in turn can reach hundreds in their local area. The sums don't have to be large for the impact to be big.
And so then, as I close, to the question of how do we put ourselves out of business? At the same time as we look to meet immediate need I am convinced this is a question we must look to answer. It is my belief that this should ultimately be the long term aim of any charity, and we are no exception, to do themselves out of a job. In an ideal world there would not be a need for organisations like Credit Action to exist. In a society where financial products were transparent, children and young people were taught the skills needed to manage their money, the relationship between financial services companies and the consumer was less adversarial and more co-operative, if material acquisitiveness was not the be-all-and-end-all for many as it is today, it is not impossible to envisage a world in which the work we do is interwoven with the fabric of society and not the remit of a charitable organisation.
As we journey away from here this evening we will do so past the former Fleet Street offices of the nations media, and those who travel west may soon find themselves under the shadow of Big Ben and the Houses of Parliament. The two institutions of media and politics have great power to bring about change. Through lobbying and campaigning - such as the recent campaign concerning dodgy credit advertising online many of you will have seen - Credit Action is able to work prominently with both media and politicians to try and bring about the sustainable change which can aim to improve the situation not just of those managing their money now, but also of the generations who will do so in the future. For a charity which aspires to work preventatively, this is absolutely key.
There is a real operational cost to Credit Action in doing this work and it is a cost which cannot be met by funding streams and project grants in the way that many other costs can. It is a cost which must be met by those who share our vision of a society which is more financially free, of people who are able to help themselves avoid the problems of debt and financial hardship, a society where individuals do not find themselves crunched by credit, as they do today. This is the aim of Credit Action, this was the foundation on which Keith founded the charity 15 years ago, and it is the same foundation which we build on today and it is only with your support that we can continue to do so.
Do please get in touch with us, I am always deeply encouraged to hear from people interested and engaged in our work. Do tell others of our work and how they too can be involved. I hope you enjoy your evening, and thank you once again for the support you have already given us, and in advance for that which you will give. Thank you.
